Federal Reserve, FBI spied on Occupy Wall Street movement, documents show

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond worked with the FBI to closely monitor the protest activities of the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011, according to recently released FBI documents.

The documents — obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the progressive Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) — reveal that the FBI coordinated at length with local law enforcement, private financial institutions and other government agencies in their monitoring efforts of the Occupy movement’s activities.

For example, the Federal Reserve of Richmond — headquartered in Richmond, Va. — instructed its personnel to monitor Occupy planning sessions, and reported to the local FBI office about their findings on a number of occasions.

One of the FBI documents — published to PCJF’s site on Dec. 22, 2012 and dated Oct. 4, 2011 — says that the “Assistant Vice President [of the] Law Enforcement Unit of the Federal Reserve Law Enforcement Unit [was contacted] to pass on information regarding the movement known as Occupy Wall Street.”

“This movement has been known to be peaceful, but demonstrations across the United States show that other…

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Source: Daily Caller

Domestic Spy Expansion Bill Sails Through the Congress

By Bob Barr

Neither Congress nor the White House has proved itself capable of reaching a decision on how to begin trimming the $16.5 trillion national debt with which these two institutions have saddled the American taxpayers. They even have been unable to come up with a reasonable measure to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” they themselves constructed months ago. Yet, when it comes to expanding the power of the government to spy on American citizens without warrants, both the House and the Senate last week fairly tripped over themselves in a rush to pass legislation doing just that; with President Obama almost gleefully waiting to sign the bill.

The power to electronically surveill citizens without so much as asking a judge for leave to do so, stems from 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The rapid action by the Congress last Friday was prompted by fear that this extraordinary power would lapse at the end of this month – forcing Uncle Sam to actually justify its surveillance by seeking a warrant in advance of spying on citizens.

The federal government’s abject fear it might actually have to meet the constitutional requirement of having a good reason to eavesdrop on American citizens’ conversations before doing so, prompted a majority of Republicans and Democrats in the Congress – who can hardly agree on the time of day right now – to come together and make sure our intelligence agencies were not going to be hamstrung by law or the Bill of Rights.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid led the fight for surveillance with the standard, post-911 cry that…

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Source: Town Hall 

 

Your Privacy is in Jeopardy!

Dear friend of liberty,

This coming week, Congress is set to take up another so-called "cybersecurity" bill, H.R. 3523, the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011" (CISPA).

And this time, many of those who joined us to stop SOPA and PIPA are supporting this legislation.

After our victory over SOPA/PIPA, I wrote to you in late February about the need to stay vigilant against Congress' attempts to assert more control over the Internet.

Well, since then, Republicans and Democrats have introduced at least four major "cybersecurity" bills.

Expanding government power is always bipartisan.

CISPA, sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers (MI-8), is promoted as a harmless bill that will enable voluntary "information sharing" between private corporations and government agencies in the name of "cybersecurity."

Unfortunately, it would allow the transfer of vast amounts of data, including information like your Internet browsing history or email content, to any agency in the federal government, including non-civilian agencies such as the National Security Agency or the Department of Defense Cyber Command.

One major problem with these alleged "cybersecurity" bills is their overly broad focus on what information private companies are encouraged to share with federal agencies.

CISPA currently contains no incentive for private companies like Facebook or Google to remove personally identifiable information from data they share.

In addition, the way this legislation is drafted, it currently overrides privacy presumptions found in the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the Communications Act regarding the privacy of an individual's online communications and related records.

Essentially, CISPA would deem all existing privacy laws null and void for "cybersecurity" purposes.

Once the government has this information, there are no meaningful restrictions on its use, as its only qualifier is that it must be related to "cybersecurity" or to protect "national security."

So only the immediate action of you and your fellow C4L members can help protect our privacy from the government's ever-expanding reach.

After you've contacted your representative at (202) 224-3121 to demand a "NO" vote on H.R. 3523, please chip in at least $10 or $25 below to help Campaign for Liberty mobilize as many Americans as possible to take action on critical issues like CISPA and other so-called "cybersecurity" bills that would strip more privacy away from Americans.

This fight won't have the glamour or media attention that SOPA and PIPA received, so please take action immediately and show Congress the liberty movement is serious about defending our constitutionally protected rights no matter the odds.

In Liberty,

Matt Hawes

Vice President